#i can leave happy and reassured that many others will write strange precised stories after me

[lottiecrabie]

seeing everyone write politician!matty as Soon as he posts something politician-y is sooo comforting and funny. the torch is Passed on. weird aus will live on even after lottiecrabie!

[tetrakys]

(sorry I accidentally cancelled my post after replying to your ask, luckily I’d saved a screenshot)

37. “I want to hike up your skirt and take you right here.”

So... I was thinking how to bullshit my way through this prompt too, but... NO! I’m not going to do it this time. There’s so little out there about Armin (and yes, I’ve written only one fic about him so far, it didn’t seem to get much interest so please comment when you like something, so I know and get inspired to write more on that topic). Also, there’s veeeeeeeeery little smut with him, so... thank you for asking me to write about him, this is for you @fuckyalllifes ! 

And for me.

And for all Armin’s stans!

And for FREEDOM!!!

You can consider this a sequel to Memories Lost, Memories Found.

Long story short, after Candy kissed someone in episode 10, she received the memories box from her mother with Armin’s pictures, she got sad and went to get her man back. 

Beware NSFW.

-----------------------------------------------------

It was Friday evening and I was extremely tired. The last lecture of the day had ended a while ago, I’d just been through a thesis meeting and I felt weak, both mentally and physically.

Rayan’s lectures were awkward for me at this point, after our kiss a few months ago it seemed we were on the verge of starting something serious, but fate has a strange way to play out.

When I told him that we couldn’t go any further because I was still in love with someone else, he didn’t blame me, he didn’t get mad. I saw hurt in his eyes but he said that he understood, that it was for the best and we could get back to a normal student/teacher relationship. He’d been amazingly understanding but I couldn’t help feeling guilty. I knew he still wanted me.

I could see it in the way he briefly looked at me in class, his eyes focusing on me a little longer that they did on anyone else. I could hear it in the way he spoke my name, with sweetness and thinly concealed longing. The guilt was eating me alive.

And it wasn’t that I hadn’t wanted him at the time, that kiss had been as real to me as it had been to him. I liked him, I still found him attractive as hell, but I couldn’t deny the truth of my feelings any longer.

I loved Armin, I always had and always will.

As if I’d conjured him by simply thinking about him, Armin appeared next to me.

“Armin!” I cried out surprised, throwing myself in his arms, “what are you doing here?”

“Surprise,” he said grinning like a child, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “I took the day off and got on a train to spend the weekend with you.”

I felt my heart burst with joy. I missed him all the time. I hadn’t forgotten that our relationship hadn’t survived the distance the first time, but now it was different. We were older, more mature and in a couple of months I would graduate and move to his town. Nothing could come between us.

“Where are you staying? I don’t think Yeleen is willing to share the room with the both of us.” It wasn’t just a thought, I’d asked her several times, and she’d always replied with a very dry no. I understood where she was coming from, still… it wasn’t like we had many other options.

“In Alexy’s room, he’s going to spend the night at Morgan’s. Poor Hyun, not only he has to share his room with both Morgan AND my brother, but he’s also doing it because I’m here visiting the girl he likes,” he said smirking a little.

“Don’t say that, Hyun is happy for us.”

“Sure, because he’s a nice guy. It doesn’t mean he’s not also sad about it, he’s in love with you.”

“He’s not in love with me,” I chastised him.

“At the very least, he has a very big crush. Everyone has it, apparently. I can’t blame them though,” he added, giving me a kiss on the cheek, “how could it be otherwise.”

“You like to tease, no one has a crush on me.”

“Should I remind you what happened with Castiel a few weeks ago? Actually, now that I’m here, should I go beat him up?” He said with an over-the-top serious tone.

He got me there though, Castiel had hit on me right after the party for the launch of his new music video. I went to his place for an innocent cup of tea with a friend, and he’d asked me to spend the night together. I’d obviously rejected him and told Armin, I didn’t want any secrets between us.

“He didn’t know we’d gotten back together, and I told you he apologised. Why am I even trying to reassure you? You’ve never felt jealous a moment in your life, and you’d never get in a fight, not a real one at least, maybe online.”

“I could challenge him to a FPS duel, I would totally crush him,” he replied amused. “What lecture did you just have this late in the evening by the way? Alexy only told me where to find you, not what you were doing,” he said looking around the empty room.

“Just a meeting with my thesis advisor,” this got his attention.

“You mean with professor Zaidi?” He said with a grin, but I could hear a barely concealed spiteful undertone. “You and him, alone in this big empty classroom?”

“Please, don’t tell me you care. You were just enjoying yourself teasing me about people who may or may not have a crush on me.”

He looked at me pensive for a few moments, then gently pushed me against the desk.

“You know I’m not the jealous type,” he said caressing my arms with sweetness, “because I’m sure about your feelings for me, and I know you would never be with anyone else.” Lowering the strap of my dress he uncovered my skin and left a small tender kiss on my shoulder. “But this guy… Rayan… you like him,” he said kissing my neck, “you flirted with him,” his lips were now on my jaw, “you kissed him.”

I was about to protest when he added, whispering in my ear, “I want to hike up your skirt and take you right here.”

“What? Are you out of your m…”

My words got stuck in my throat when his mouth came crushing onto mine. This kiss was different from the hundreds we had shared during the years. He was always playful and teasing, now instead he was rough and possessive. His hands started roaming all over my body. Cupping both my breasts with heat, fondling them above the dress, I’d never seen him like this, he seemed to be something in between angry and desperate.

Was he actually jealous? For the first time in his life? He must’ve been going crazy right now. I wanted to reassure him, so I raised my hands to his face, my fingers interweaving with his jet-black hair, and answered the kiss with the same ardour.

Abruptly pulling his lips away from mine, he turned me around, bending me over the desk.

“Armin, we can’t! Anyone could come in at any moment.” I tried to protest.

“Come on, Candy,” he said with a tantalising tone, “you and I have always loved playing games…” slipping a hand under my skirt he caressed my inner thigh up to my underwear, massaging above it with loving motions, “let’s see how fast I can make you come before someone finds us.”

I moaned when his finders slipped under the hem of my panties and started caressing between my folds. “What if I make you come first,” I said looking at him over my shoulder.

He just grinned, happy to be having his way once again, so I added, “you’re going down.”

“Maybe later,” he replied slipping a finger inside me, groaning when he felt how wet I already was, “we don’t have much time now.”

Moving aside my underwear, I felt something much bigger than a finger entering me, and with one fluid motion he settled himself to the hilt inside me. The feeling of him… was always the best thing ever.

I thought he would start moving immediately, but he remained still for a moment, then lowering his chest over my back and tucking a lock of hair behind my ear, he whispered, “hello love, I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” I panted, our lips a mere inch apart. Then he raised again, hands grabbing my hips with possess, and started moving with a quick and precise flow. I loved how the only times he was this absorbed and completely focused were when we were playing a game or making love. When we were doing both? It was magical.

“You really wanted to take me on his desk,” I said when he started increasing his speed, I had to grab the side to steady myself.

“Did you?” he asked, pumping into me even faster, “did you want him to take you on his desk? Or somewhere else? Maybe you still want to?” I could hear a small note of uncertainty in his voice.

“I came to you, Armin. I want you. Just you.” I barely had the strength to reply, I could feel the heat build up inside me, and I didn’t want to lose. I started pushing back against him squeezing my muscles hard, knowing he would’ve felt me even tighter around him. I heard him moan and, with the barest self-control replied, “You’re playing dirty, Candy, with your sweet words and your even sweeter pussy. I’m not going to lose that easily.”

Moving his arm around me, he started caressing my clit and I knew that I was about to lose it completely. After a few extra pumps we both came hard, stifling our moans trying not get caught.

I knew I had to adjust myself and leave the classroom immediately, every second we stayed there was incredibly risky but, in that moment, I was so tired and content that I didn’t really care.

“I don’t think anyone won, we came at the same time,” I said when I finally found the strength to raise from the desk and turn around, seeing him tucking himself in his jeans was so sexy that I was almost willing to start all over again.

He fixed my dress and, taking my chin between his fingers, he looked me in the eyes and said, “I won, Candy, the day you came back for me. Everyday since then is always a victory, because you are with me.”

And when he took my lips again, his body flushed against mine, I knew it in my heart.

I had won too.

[imagineclaireandjamie]

The Last All-Clear: (7)

Notes from Mod Bonnie

This story is a series following the premise: “Imagine if Jamie travelled through the stones, but instead of finding Claire in Boston he found himself having arrived years too early, when the War was still happening and Claire had yet to meet him… What would he do?”

Formatting note: Bolding in Jamie’s letters = underlining

Previously:

(Part 1) September 17, 1942: A Rusty Nail 

(Part 2) December 3, 1942: Comb and Glove 

(Part 3) 1943: Blood and Whisky | (Part 4) 1943-1944: Gifts and Ends

(Part 5) June, 1944: The Road | (Part 6) June, 1944: The Ditch  

(7) Samhain, 1946: Inverness

“Did you have many scots in your charge during the war?” Frank asked quite suddenly. I was more happy to change the subject from his kilted spectre, which, while surely utter nonsense, had given me chills.

“Yes, there were quite a few! There was one in particular,” I added, unable to stop the grin from blooming across my face at the memory. “He was a piper in the third seaforths. He couldn't stand being stuck with a needle. He was—” 

I stopped, the implication suddenly settling over my shoulders like cold, creeping damp. Not a non-sequitur, then?  

His expression did nothing to suggest otherwise, nor his flat, “Right,” as he averted his gaze. 

Why, you bloody bastard! 

“What is it, exactly, ah...” Carefully. Oh-so-carefully. “...that you're asking me, Frank?”

He didn’t even miss a beat. “When I saw that chap staring up at you, I thought he might be someone you'd nursed. Someone who might be looking for you now. To reconnect.”

“To ‘reconnect?’” My breath shortened and for one wild moment, I felt the hands of panic around my throat. How could he have known? was the unbidden thought. 

“It wouldn't be unusual,” he was saying, quite gently. “It wouldn't be surprising if you'd sought some comfort, or—” The anxiety vanished as my senses returned, along with my absolutely righteous indignation. “Are you asking me— If I've been unfaithful?” 

It was hardly the worst fight we’d ever had, but it was the worst we’d had in a long time, made still worse by occurring during the ‘honeymoon’ we had both wished to perpetrate. Yes, it was tense and volatile, but at least it moved rapidly, through the near-accusations, the retractions, tender reassurances and, inevitably, to sex—the Randall fix-all. Or, rather, the Randalls-mutually-agree-to-pretend-that-it fixes-all. 

Long after Frank was asleep, though, satiated and carefree, I lay awake, privately seething. That he would have the audacity to even suggest such a thing when I’d never so much as kissed another man since I married Frank, let alone— 

Still, something still caught in my mind: ‘If you’d sought some comfort...’ 

It was only a harmless flirtation, I reassured myself, before scoffing, because that made it sound cheap, and wasn’t at all what it had been, in any case! But what had it been? We’d never touched in any way that wasn’t perfectly chaste. He’d never found his way to my bed in the secrecy of lonely nights, as so many others did in camp. I didn’t even know his full name or fully what his face looked like, for Christ’s sake. 

And yet, Danton had been very important to me, for that brief period during our time together: we had been friends. I had sought comfort in his company, many times, and he had given it, with his words and his good drink, his attention and encouragement. Hell, I doubt I would have stayed in France through the end of the war, without his friendship and the gentle support he unendingly gave; without the solace he brought to my lonely, doubting heart in those days. 

I stared at the ceiling, wondering—not for the first time—what ever became of him. There was that terrible fight between the tents, when he’d said those things and I’d stormed off in a rage that became a sobbing breakdown in the privacy of my tent. As much as he hurt me—deeply, viciously, even with so few words—I did regret, later, that I hadn’t sought him again and tried to talk things through. That cold, cruel disdain had seemed so out of character, even at the time. Surely, if I’d gotten in his face, forced him to speak to me with the sort of candor that was integral to our friendship, we might have reached some sort of rapprochement. But I’d only ever seen him again in faint glimpses across camp. After that, he was gone. People said he just up and left, one day, never to be heard from again. 

‘Someone who might be looking for you now. To reconnect.’

Well, and if there WERE someone come looking for me, Frank, I silently spat as I rolled onto my side away from him, he bloody well wouldn’t have been a Scot. 

2 0 2 4   

Passing strange, it was, to arrive back in Inverness this afternoon. Odd on the one hand, of course, to compare it with the Inverness of old; but stranger still to traverse its streets with money in my pocket and proper clothes on my back, my steps certain. You’ll have read by now of my wretched experiences here of seven years ago, not one of which I should ever wish to repeat (though I give you leave to tease and laugh about them for as many years to come, as ye wish).

Suffice it to say, I found myself murmuring a prayer of heartfelt gratitude for being able to stride boldly up to the innkeeper’s desk to give them my custom; for the money to hire a room (and by no means the cheapest in the place); for knowing precisely how to operate the hot water geyser and how I might go about seeing to my supp /

/     Forgive my artless interruption, but I must immediately explain that I had been writing the above while sitting at the desk in my second-floor chamber. Some whimsical soul had thought to situate it at the window, overlooking the square and the fountain beneath. A pretty aspect, to be sure, though the night is foul and thundering, at present, and hardly anything to be seen at all. 

On that point, I couldna have been more wrong, for there ye were, Claire, right before me in the window of the inn across the street, brushing your hair. 

Christ, the joy that coursed through me was so immediate, so complete, I couldna rightly say if I was crying or laughing. It’s likely to have been some of both, but as I say, I wasna paying much heed to anything save you, glowing in the lamplight as ye wrestled and tussled with that brush. How I’ve missed that sight, mo nighean donn: you and your great curly wig, both! I ken well that I laughed, the sound loud and full and bursting, when ye suddenly brandished the brush in a fit of pique when it caught in a tangle. I didna need one bit to peer at the reflection of your lips to ken precisely what it is ye said. Jesus H—RRROOSEVELT Christ! with that pursed, growling R that makes ye sound like a wee, angry bulldog, and at which I can never help but chuckle in delight. I leaned elbows on the desk and sat my face in both hands like a schoolboy, half-covering my mouth as I grinned like one, too; as I watched my sweetheart across the way. 

It shouldna have been altogether a shock, I suppose. I kent you were in town, for I’d come to Inverness to see you, or rather, to see ye safely gone through the stones tomorrow; and yet I canna express what the gift of that unexpected sighting did to fill my heart. It was more than two years since the last time I’d laid eyes on ye, and that memory marred by blood and fear. So, to see ye suddenly there before my eyes, all alight ? I shall cherish that image, always.    

Ye might think it a strange thing to mention, Sassenach (I wonder if I ought to scratch it through, altogether), but to my own shock, I found myself feeling a trifle sad on behalf of Frank Randall, of all people. For, while I hold no great fondness for the man, he is a man, after all, a man who loves you; and how many years has he, too, waited through wartime and separation for a peaceful life with his wife? with the very woman in that window?  Ye chose me, I remind myself, with no little relief and satisfaction: with a free choice between us, I was the one you wanted. Still, I found that I pitied him your loss; that you’d be gone from him forever, first in body and later in your heart, after tonight. 

That is to say, I pitied him right up until the moment I saw the selfsame bastard coming up the street in the storm, at which time all soft, generous consideration was replaced with purest loathing for everything from his hat to his umbrella to the manner of his gait. 

The electricity cut off suddenly enough to be startling, and from the corner of my eye I saw your own light vanish as well. The work of the storm, I should expect. I fumbled for a candle in the desk drawer (when did I become so blind and helpless in the dark, I find myself wondering), and by the time I’d gotten it lit, I could see that you were about the same business, slowly illuminating your room with candle after candle. It was even more breathtaking, to see ye by candlelight again, silk and curl alike sparkling with gold as ye moved about.  

You should know that the moment I saw the door behind ye open, I stood and closed the curtain. The both of ye deserved privacy, this last night. Besides, my jealous imagination would more than manage on its own, I’m afraid, without newsreel footage of the event.

Besides, my brown-haired lass, I shall see ye again on the morrow. 

2 0 2 5   

I have seen ye this day, Sassenach, though not entirely under the circumstances I expected. 

You’d told me, once, that you’d gone to the stones with Frank at sunrise of that morn, and had returned on your own to Craigh na Dun later in the afternoon to gather your wee plants. Hoping to occupy my time until after midday, when I would drive out to the vicinity of the hill to lay in wait, I put on my coat and scarf (your Christmas gift, remember?) and passed the time out on the moors. 

There was naught I cared to hunt, but I hadn’t the mind for it, in any case. I just wandered, unsure if my thoughts would ever settle. There was no task to be done on your behalf, this time, as much as I might prefer otherwise, nothing to be done at all, save wait. I only wanted to see your last moments before ye touched the stones, so I’d ken for certain. Hour after hour, I walked, trying to enjoy the gusting winds and sounds of the animals and trees, but finding little comfort therein. 

Only, just after noon, when I was nearly back to the outskirts of town, I heard the sound of a Car approaching, coming in my direction, and then there ye were, driving fast around the bend in the road. At once, I felt the gripping of horror, for it was so much earlier in the day than I’d anticipated, and I kent I should never be able to get to my own vehicle in enough time to reach the stones before you. 

As I beheld you in all your glory, though, driving that automobile at terrifying speed, and looking absolutely thrilled for it, the fear vanished and peace settled at last. It was alright. That was the way I wished to remember ye these next years in which you’ll be truly gone, mo chridhe; not you vanishing before my eyes, perhaps screaming—as I did— when the stones pull you into their terrible embrace. No, not that: only you, dressed in white, your hair flying free in the wind and your face glowing with inner joy as ye drove off toward our life together. For today, mo chridhe, is the day we met. 

April 16, 1948 

2,557 days

His breath was white against the dark of the wee hours, coming in gasps of exertion as he made his way up the frost-covered faerie hill, heavy-laden in more ways than one. 

He hadn’t often been able to bring himself to write in the diary, since he had left Inverness. It wasn’t that it was a bleak or unhappy time, on the whole. Much like the two years prior, he had both his employment and his personal projects to keep him well-occupied; and even in the quiet moments, there were countless books to read, rides to take, long walks to be had, and prayers to say. 

But as the months wore on, as the days on the calendar began ticking closer and closer to this day, his waking thoughts were plagued by dark thoughts more and more, those that had tormented him so unrelentingly in the earliest days since coming through the stones: that he himself had been sent to a year misaligned with Claire’s own life, and that she might well do the same. In the end, he’d been meant to go to 1941, to be there in that ditch with her and see her rescued. It was a comfort, to be sure, that his steps had been ordained, but that was the very thing: what if she and the bairn were likewise meant, somehow, for some purpose unknown, to be elsewhere? He had given her up with no doubt in his heart that a better life awaited her on the other side of the stones, but who was to say that such a place and time should be—

Let it be with me, Lord, he prayed for the millionth time as he emerged from the wood empty-handed and took up a place of waiting before the terrible stones. That her better life would be now, here, with me. Let it be 1948. 

Dawn broke, in golds and pinks across the horizon. The birds in the nearby wood began their twittering chorus, joyously heralding the start of the new day. Back in 1746, it would be sunrise, as well—the redcoats would be arriving—she would be running up the hill—

Minutes passed. 

And passed. 

An hour. 

Grant her to me again, he begged, his back and his heart aching with the pain of every passing second as he waited, give me once more this rare woman, and I will love her still better than before. I swear it by all that I am. 

Eight o’clock. 

Please.... Please....

Ten o’clock

He was in the grass on his knees in the center of the circle, palms upturned 

Let her place be with me.

Noon

Tell me what I must do to make it so; what I must give in return.

Tell me.

Just tell me and I’ll do it. 

Three o’clock. 

Give me strength, he prayed unendingly as the evil whisperings of doubt crowded around his heart.  Give me the strength to wait beyond the time of hope. Guide my steps to her as you did before. Give me the strength to find her. 

Sunset.

“Lord, that she might be safe,” he wept aloud over shaking hands, despair he hadn’t known since 1746 rending him apart, “wherever she is. Wherever she has gone, she and the—”

A crack like the sting of a whip rent though the world. 

His legs hadn’t even fully straightened before he caught her. 

[thevalkirias]

The Great Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan’s personal tragedy

In his short life F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote over one hundred short stories in order to survive and a few novels in order to respond to his deeper artistic aspirations. Whenever a new novel of his was published, he also released, more or less at the same time, a collection of short stories with similar themes. Along with The Great Gatsby came All the Sad Young Men and, not by chance, the latter is very close to the former. Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s narrator, is clearly one of these sad men: melancholic and reflective, watching from the sidelines, profoundly aware of his life passing by and of his own detachment from it. The Gatsby which lends his name to the title of the book is not really a sad man, but he is tragic: obsessively chasing a past he cannot get back, he tries everything, but in the end is destroyed by his dream. A dream that seems to include building a life with Daisy Buchanan, a character that many consider the main antagonist in his story. Daisy, however, gets her own share of tragedy, which we usually ignore.

The narrative of The Great Gatsby makes it easy to hate Daisy and read her as empty, amoral, inhuman, a destroyer or even a “bitch”, as pointed out by academic research¹. This happens mainly because Nick, through whom we access the whole story, is very partial to his neighbor and friend. He makes it clear when he says, on page two, that in the end Gatsby was good, or when he states that Gatsby was “worth the whole damn bunch put together”. Nick is someone divided, “simultaneously enchanted and repelled” by his neighbors’ world of riches and superficiality, as he puts it himself. As stated by Tony Tanner in his introduction to the novel, Nick is a “spectator in search of star”, and that is what Gatsby represents for him. That is the reason why Nick describes Gatsby as the kind of person with whom you will maybe bump into four or five times in your life. Beyond that, he chooses to ignore, throughout the whole novel, that Gatsby is a criminal whose businesses are possibly built with the use of violence – because Nick, as Tanner points out very well, prefers not to know; Gatsby tries to tell him, Nick avoids the subject.

Even so, Nick himself recognizes that what Gatsby wanted – not only Daisy, but the Daisy from five years before, a Daisy who could reassure him that her life away from him had never happened and that she had never loved Tom Buchanan – was too much to ask from her. Nick understands that Daisy would never live up to Gatsby’s dreams, “not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion”. The problem with Gatsby is that he is unable to see Daisy as a person, one that is as real as he is. The novel, by the way, makes it clear that the monetary aspect of the whole thing fascinates him as much as the girl does. It amazes him to see the house where she lived, as it does to realize that that was her reality. Nick perceives and mentions the strange enchantment of Daisy’s voice, which he is unable to interpret. Gatsby is the one who offers an explanation, saying that her voice is “full of money”. Realizing that many other men desired her, “increased her value in [Gatsby’s] eyes”, which sound oddly commercial. Leland Person Jr.’s statement² about Gatsby having an “increasingly depersonalized vision of her” comes to mind, and this is simply another piece of evidence.

It is a lot easier to have sympathy for Gatsby than for Daisy. For starters, Gatsby is the self-made man that goes from poverty to wealth on his own, and not because he was born in that world – like Daisy herself or her husband Tom Buchanan – and it is not without reason that this is a famous archetype: because it captivates us. The narrative helps us with this. I find it particularly horrible that Gatsby is murdered in his expensive marble pool after he, more than once, unsuccessfully tries to invite Nick to go for a swim, always reminding him that he hadn’t used the pool yet. Meanwhile, Daisy is fickle and seems not to have any idea about what she wants; she is also profoundly selfish, always thinking exclusively about her own feelings. But the novel allows us to look a little deeper.

If the 1920s saw the emergence of the “flapper” – a name given to and reclaimed by the women who defied social conventions, like Zelda Fitzgerald herself –, their behavior was still considered shocking by society at large, and it was not the norm. Expectations surrounding women were still the same: marriage and motherhood. Zelda discusses the subject in “Eulogy on the Flapper”, one of her essays, mentioning the “fundamental and inevitable disillusionments” that would come eventually. The flapper lived the way she lived, she says, because she was well aware of this inevitable future and it was because she did what she did that she was able to “live happily ever afterwards” once her role was fulfilled.

At one point in the book, Nick attempts to recount Daisy’s story. Though he hears it from Gatsby, it seems to be taken directly from her letters to him, and this is as close as we get to her version of what happened. At this moment we learn that Daisy had asked Gatsby to get back to her soon because she “was feeling the pressure of the world outside” and that she “wanted her life shaped now, immediately—and the decision must be made by some force—of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality—that was close at hand”. That was when Tom Buchanan – her husband, her daughter’s father, the man she chooses to be with in the end – appeared.

Except it’s a little more complicated than that. As John Callahan very aptly points out³, there is an essential scene in the novel, in which the Buchanans, Nick and Gatsby are in a hotel room at the Plaza, and this is the moment when the truth about Daisy and Gatsby’s affair comes up. In this scene, the two men discuss Daisy as if she were a valuable possession. It’s interesting to notice her silence while the two debate whether she loves them or not. All she does is ask them to stop arguing and if they could all please, please, please leave that room. It is precisely in this scene that Nick realizes that Gatsby’s dream is over, because it was probably in this scene that Daisy herself realized that her romantic aspirations were dead. Between Gatsby and her husband there was no longer such a difference in her eyes, and it isn’t surprising that she chooses Tom, who could at least offer her the security she wanted so badly.

Another essential event is Myrtle Wilson’s death in an accident caused by the car Daisy was driving with Gatsby by her side. He takes the blame and ends up being killed for it – another moment that proves his martyrdom. Daisy seems not to care at all about the dead woman (either way, we could never know), and she does not have to face the consequences of what she did; at the end of the day goes back home and back to her husband (an understandable choice if we consider the traumas of the day, but Nick disagrees). Gatsby, however, does not care about Myrtle either, and Nick himself makes a point of mentioning that it seemed like the only thing that mattered to him was Daisy’s reaction, and it was too bad if anyone was in her way.

None if it means that Daisy Buchanan wasn’t an incredibly flawed character, or that we should approve of her actions throughout the story. Nevertheless, I wonder why we turn Jay Gatsby into a tragic and romantic hero and find it easier to ignore his enormous flaws than Daisy’s. We are able to extend a much bigger amount of sympathy towards him, we try to understand his motivations and we feel the weight of his process of dream and disillusion.

It’s true that Gatsby is murdered in the end, while Daisy survives, and he in a way gives his life for her, though he did not know he was doing that. But Daisy survives to be a “beautiful little fool”, as she summarizes her true role in life to Nick in her first appearance: “the best thing a girl can be in this world”, she says. She survives to live with a man who cheats on her systemically, who is unpleasant to absolutely everyone, including her. Daisy doesn’t choose Tom, she chooses self-preservation after realizing her romantic dreams are over, and her future seems absolutely horrible.

At the end of the novel, Nick reminds us of how tragic Gatsby was from the beginning –as he admired the green light at the Buchanan’s dock, his dream was long behind been (after all, as Nick had always insisted and Gatsby refused to accept, you can’t repeat the past). But in the famous final paragraphs of the novel (“so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”), Nick stops saying “I” and starts saying “we”. Gatsby’s story is universalized, and that’s why I find it impossible not to wonder why Daisy should not be included in this boat. If she beats on against the current, it is to live with her own disillusion.

Fitzgerald told us about all the sad young men, but the sad young women were there too.

¹ Person Jr, Leland S. “Herstory” and Daisy Buchanan. American Literature, Vol. 50, No. 2, May 1978. ² Person Jr, 1978. ³ Callahan, John F. F. Scott Fitzgerald's Evolving American Dream: The "Pursuit of Happiness" in Gatsby, Tender Is the Night, and The Last Tycoon. Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 42, No. 3, Autmun 1996.

About the author

FERNANDA

Officially a translator and proofreader, Fernanda has a special love for literature and for this writing thing. A loyal follower of the uncool lifestyle, she doesn’t believe in guilty pleasures nor in the concept of liking something ironically.

This piece was originally published in Portuguese on January 18th, 2017 as "O Grande Gatsby e a tragédia pessoal de Daisy Buchanan". Translated by the author.

[geekade]

Before Their Time: Twin Peaks

Lately, pop culture has begun to feel like a series of reboots and sequels. As more studios embrace the financial security of nostalgia over the risks of new material, every medium from film to TV to video games has been mining old classics for new hits. As you might have guessed, my chief problem with this phenomenon has been its ongoing omission of my dearly departed shows (too soon, Deadpool!) – until now. Twin Peaks, that patron saint of the visionary and prematurely cancelled TV show, will air a third season next month.

If you haven’t seen it, Twin Peaks aired in 1990 and 1991, and might succinctly be described as a portrait of a small town convulsed by an unthinkable crime. A succinct description, however, is hardly adequate: The brainchild of David Lynch and Mark Frost, Twin Peaks pushed against the boundaries of genre and medium. It united mystery, horror, soap, drama, comedy, and supernatural elements, defying easy classification. And its use of the sophisticated writing, acting, cinematography, and music previously reserved for movies laid the groundwork for the prestige television of today. Before Lost, Breaking Bad, or Fargo, Twin Peaks was the original riveting and unsettling story about the people of a beautiful and dangerous place.

The story begins on a gray morning, when Laura Palmer’s body washes ashore near the local sawmill. Her sleepy hometown is shaken as much by the murder itself as by its victim: An all-American girl in an all-American town, Laura (Sheryl Lee) was the homecoming queen who volunteered for everything from tutoring locals to delivering Meals on Wheels. The flummoxed sheriff (Michael Ontkean) requests federal assistance with the investigation, and the FBI dispatches Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) – pie aficionado, coffee lover, and damn fine detective – to Twin Peaks.

Using a peculiar (but effective) mix of police work and intuition, Cooper reconstructs Laura’s final hours. His investigation uncovers a secret life, one paradoxically rooted in a darkness that pervades the whole town and lived in plain sight. It’s not that Laura’s neighbors are bad people; but Twin Peaks, like many small towns, harbors secrets that no one wants to see. Laura’s death is as much the result of a single brutal act as the culmination of a thousand overlooked evils. Coop gets to the bottom of it because, as an outsider, he’s willing to consider the unthinkable.

Although he’d determined the identity of Laura’s killer while writing the series, Lynch wanted to leave the mystery unresolved, preferring to use it as a springboard into the other characters’ inner lives. However, pressure from viewers and ABC executives forced the reveal. Lynch, convinced Twin Peaks was irrevocably diminished, basically withdrew from the series. (Frost, who had always maintained viewers’ right to know, stayed on.) Lynch’s departure marked a shift from which the series never entirely recovered. The subsequent decline in tone and quality saw a corresponding drop in ratings, and not even Lynch’s return late in the season could save the show. The cancellation fell maddeningly just as Twin Peaks was getting good again, on a Lynch-written, gut-churning cliffhanger.

It’s useful to think of Twin Peaks as two shows: The “grownup” version – Lynch’s vision – mined television for previously unsounded depths. It boasted an ensemble of tangible, memorable characters and pitch-perfect story pacing. Its dreamlike logic, although baffling, never felt gratuitous. And it afforded a comparatively fair portrayal to people who, in the 90s, still had to endure being referenced with unkind whispers. The “kiddie” version – not so much a vision as a regurgitated pastiche – mined TV tropes for tediously predictable plots. Practically a soapy spinoff, kiddie Twin Peaks forced viewers to watch the local teenagers – who, except for Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn), are the town’s least interesting characters – flirt, mate, break up, and play out every soap trope from amnesia to deadly love triangle.

In case the bias isn’t screamingly obvious, I’m Team Grownup, and not just for the excellent performances and storytelling. I love stories about what happens when we confront long-denied truths, and there are few small-town truths more chilling than that the conviction that something "Can’t Happen Here" is precisely what makes it possible. Lynch’s Twin Peaks is a moral (but not moralistic) exploration of a fallen world struggling through the realization that it was never Eden. What sets Laura and Cooper apart from most of the denizens of Twin Peaks is that, faced with evil, neither sought refuge in reassuring illusions. Both refused to capitulate or look away, and this steadfastness is the link that enabled Laura to help Coop’s investigation. ABC’s executives failed to grasp this. They threw a bunch of crime and melodrama into Kiddie Twin Peaks without understanding that the show’s fans were there not for lurid sensationalism but for a meditation on the existence and nature of evil. Absent a moral center, this version could only lurch from one bad, poorly explained plot point to another, a cautionary tale about chasing ratings.

Twin Peaks showcased all the potential and constraints of network television. In a kind of meta-macrocosm to Twin Peaks the fictional place, Twin Peaks the show explored the great and terrible possibilities throbbing under the bubbly laugh-track façade that had previously defined its medium. Unfortunately, it also demonstrated how easily gun-shy execs can bury something great under tropes that all but obliterate its original vision and its viewership. Thus it ended before its time not once but twice: first, when it was reduced to a puling shadow of its former self, and again, just after Lynch reassumed the reins.

If this were a typical Before Their Time column, I’d be inclined to say something about adding insult to injury. Instead, I’m happy to report that Twin Peaks will enjoy the distinction of being the first show featured here to get a second chance. David Lynch and Mark Frost have written 18 new episodes, all directed by Lynch and featuring much of the original cast. This third season will air on Showtime in May, finally releasing fans from two decades on tenterhooks. Twin Peaks was never going to last forever, but starting May 21st, it looks like we might finally get some closure.

HOW TO WATCH: Seasons 1 and 2 are available for streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

MUST WATCH: The show is such a slow burn that it’s hard to recommend a single episode; start with the feature-length pilot.

FAVORITE LINES: “The owls are not what they seem.”

“That gum you like is coming back in style.”

“Harry, I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.”

“One day my log will have something to say about this.”

“The only thing Columbus discovered was that he was lost!”

PAIR WITH: Coffee and cherry pie

AFTERWARDS: Twin Peaks’ influence is so broad and established that choosing similar shows is a matter of identifying which elements of the show spoke to you. I’m partial to Fargo and Carnivàle, but have seen everything from The X-Files to Lost to Riverdale recommended to scratch that Twin Peaks itch.